As minor planet discoveries are confirmed, they are given a permanent number by the IAU's Minor Planet Center (MPC), and the discoverers can then submit names for them, following the IAU's naming conventions. The list below concerns those minor planets in the specified number-range that have received names, and explains the meanings of those names.
Based on Paul Herget's The Names of the Minor Planets,[6] Schmadel also researched the unclear origin of numerous asteroids, most of which had been named prior to World War II. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: SBDB New namings may only be added to this list below after official publication as the preannouncement of names is condemned.[7] The WGSBN publishes a comprehensive guideline for the naming rules of non-cometary small Solar System bodies.[8]
Yurij Arsentyevich Roj (born 1948) is an expert on laser ranging, space and ground-based communication systems, and a key participant in the Russian lunar program. He is a member of the K. E. Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Cosmonautics.
Otto Seydl (1884–1959), Czech populariser of astronomy, worked on stellar statistics and later on history of astronomy in Bohemia. He served as the director of the State Observatory in Klementinum in Prague (1939–1942 and 1945–1948). He was a member of the IAU and The Czech Astronomical Society.
Emilio Molinari (born 1963), developed his astronomical career in Brera Observatory, Milan, beginning with the study of distant clusters of galaxies then shifting to technology group. He now serves as director of the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo and Rapid Eye Mount observatories.
Bradley W. Timerson (1950–2018) was a science teacher, weather spotter, amateur seismologist and active member of IOTA. Brad served as IOTA VP for Planetary Occultations, where he mentored observers and analyzed hundreds of submitted asteroidal occultations.
On the banks of the Omo River in Ethiopia, archaeologists have found fossil fragments of early Olduwan hominids. The site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980.
Tottori-Dai-Sakyu ("Tottori Sand Dunes"), Japan's greatest sand dune, near Tottori City which merged with Saji Village, where the Saji Observatory is located, in 2004
Yoko Nozaki (born 1965) is a curator at Higashiyamato City Museum who has shared astronomy with the general public for many years. She is one of the most famous planetarium communicators in Japan.
Jean-Philippe Uzan (born 1969) is a French theoretical physicist, renowned for his research on gravitation and relativistic cosmology. He has received several awards, including the Georges Lemaître prize, and is deeply involved in scientific outreach both by publishing popular books and mixing art and science.
Count Basie (1904–1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader and composer. One of the greatest jazz musicians of the 20th century, he founded the Count Basie Orchestra in 1935 and left an impressive discography.
Truett Latimer (born 1928) an American IMAX film producer and former president of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, was instrumental in the bold expansion of the museum in 1986, including in 1989 the building of its satellite facility, the George Observatory (Src).
Becky Smethurst (born 1990) is a British astrophysicist currently working at the University of Oxford. Her research concerns galaxies and their supermassive black holes. She maintains a very high quality YouTube channel with over 100.000 subscribers.
Chelsea Wang (b. 2000) was awarded second place in the 2018 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for her materials science team project. She attended the Fossil Ridge High School, Fort Collins, Colorado, U.S.A.
Jean Baptiste Gaspard Bochart de Saron (1730–1794) was a French magistrate and president of the Paris parliament. An amateur astronomer and mathematician, he was the first to compute a circular orbit for Uranus, and he computed orbits for many of Messier's comets until his death during the French Revolution.
Erika Yang (b. 2000) was awarded first place in the 2018 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for her materials science project. She attended the Granada High School, Livermore, California, U.S.A.
Kyoko Iwasaki (born 1978), a Japanese swimmer who received a gold medal in the women's 200-m breast stroke at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. She is not only a superior athlete in Japan, but also the youngest gold medallist in the history of the world's swim meets.
Giulia Marconcini (born 1991) has a master's degree in construction engineering-architecture with honors. Her first work was the reinforced concrete structure supporting the dome of the astronomical observatory K83 "Beppe Forti" in Montelupo Fiorentino.
Klaudia Ivanics-Rieger (1989–2023), a geography and religious teacher, writer, educator, amateur astronomer and founder of the Bakony Astronomical Association
Michele Mazzucato, (born 1962) is an amateur astronomer and discoverer of minor planets whose main fields of interest are the history of astronomy, geometrical geodesy and astrometry of minor planets. A member of several scientific associations, he has written many articles and books, principally on geodesy and astronomy topics.
Maram Kaire (born 1978) is a Senegalese astronomer and founder of the Senegalese Association for the Promotion of Astronomy. He has supervised stellar occultation missions in collaboration with NASA. He is a member of the African Initiative for Planetary and Space Science and the representative of the IAU in Senegal.
Elisa Consigli (born 1981) a marketing executive and niece of Italian amateur astronomer Maura Tombelli, who co-discovered this minor planet. Elisa has graduated in linguistic and multimedia communication.
Emiliano Ricci (born 1964) is an Italian science journalist and writer, known for his popularization of astronomy and physics. An astronomy enthusiast from a young age, he is the founder of the Florentine Astronomical Society.
Clement Feller (born 1989) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Physics Institute of Bern University, whose investigations include the photometric properties of cometary nuclei, asteroids and meteorites.
Estela Fernández-Valenzuela (born 1983) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Florida Space Institute at the University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL). Her studies include trojan asteroids and photometry of and stellar occultations by trans-Neptunian objects.
Étienne Klein (born 1958) is a French physicist and philosopher of science. He took part in the development of isotopic separation involving lasers and worked on the design of a superconducting particle accelerator. As a science popularizer he has published numerous books about quantum mechanics and the philosophy of time.
A substance of great power in the science fiction universe of Star Trek, dilithium is an essential component for the faster-than-light warp drive depicted in the stories. In the real world, dilithium is a molecule consisting of two covalently-bonded lithium atoms.
Wendy Hagen Bauer (born 1950) is a North American professor emerita of astronomy at Wellesley College, where she taught from 1979 to 2015. A dedicated educator, she taught classes ranging from upper level astronomy seminars on stars, to planetary geology.
Thomas J. Bauer (born 1955) is a retired physics instructor at Wellesley College, where he taught from 1986 to 2014. He developed instrumentation to use in both introductory and advanced laboratory classes, and developed software to control data collection from spectrometers to oscilloscopes.
